


rocket queens

by openended



Category: Babylon 5, Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: (it's not either of the main ones but i feel like i should warn you anyway), Canonical Character Death, F/F, Jaeger Pilots, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-05
Updated: 2013-08-05
Packaged: 2017-12-22 11:38:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/912756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openended/pseuds/openended
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Telepaths rose the same year as the kaiju, and the Pan Pacific Defense Corps provided a convenient way to keep both away from the general population.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rocket queens

They’d always assumed the Corps would leave Sofie alone, considering she was an adult and the Corps had long abandoned searching for adult telepaths without ever publicly admitting why. But Nova Hyperion’s down a pilot for reasons no one’s explaining and they need another telepath: Cherno Alpha and Eden Assassin can hold their own, but it’s better with three, and telepaths can’t drift with mundanes. The mundanes tend to go crazy. An intern doggedly chases paper records across half of Russia and near the end of that summer, the PPDC is knocking on the door.

Susan hides in her room while the Corps is downstairs explaining options. There are no options, not really. Telepaths rose the same year as the kaiju, and the Pan Pacific Defense Corps provided a convenient way to keep both away from the general population. Sofie leaves for Vladivostok the next morning, a whispered reminder in Susan’s mind: _stay quiet, they won’t find you_.

They find out three weeks later why adult telepaths generally aren’t recruited as jaeger pilots. Sofie’s funeral is held on the first day of fall.

Susan clenches her fists, digging her nails into her palms, her only defense against the tears and the crisp chill air. As her father says the kaddish, voice breaking on every other word, she straightens her back and squares her shoulders. The breeze picks up, blowing through her hair.

A kaiju rises off the coast of Kamchatka the next morning. Cherno Alpha destroys it in a matter of minutes. Susan watches the video on repeat for two hours.

* * *

The neural handshake’s smoother between telepaths, something about the connection already being halfway there, the scientists don’t really understand it but the brass doesn’t care – as long as it _works_. Telepaths are rare and scooped up as soon as their ability presents, taken away and conscripted into the jaeger program. Drifting isn’t such a shock if you’ve been doing it since you were ten.

But telepaths aren’t recruited just for piloting, Talia finds out the hard way. After Ironheart goes off the rails, chasing the RABIT farther down a hole than she can retrieve him, she isn’t drift compatible enough with anyone to create a stable handshake for more than a few minutes. The support position's paycheck is great and all, and not facing death on a regular basis is certainly a nice change, but it’s not what she’s meant for and she knows it.

She doesn’t want to make judgments about mundane pilots, she really doesn’t. She likes them well enough, goes out drinking with the Kaidonovskys whenever she’s in Russia and tends to spend her nights with Raleigh Becket when she’s on the home base and the Wei triplets keep her from getting lost in Hong Kong even when she seems hell bent on ending up in the wrong spot. But there’s something not quite there, she feels. A fluidity and grace that only telepaths would even notice was missing, maybe. The Corps touts drifting as a complete sharing of minds, but that isn’t strictly true: mundanes share minds, but know where one ends and the other begins. The boundary blurs with telepaths, a terrifyingly exhilarating blur of an expanding mind, not just shared – but melded, combined.

She and Jason were copilots on Mammoth Apostle for five years before he went too far. Part of him is still in her, just like part of her is still inside him, wherever the Corps shuttled him off to so he wouldn’t hurt anyone. She half-wonders if that isn’t the reason she hasn’t found a compatible copilot since; she’s no longer just one person, she’s one plus.

Bester keeps her occupied in the way that he can keep everyone occupied, and someone has to train the new kids on how to not go completely bonkers the first time they drift. But Talia doesn’t miss the looks the other pilots sometimes give her when they think she isn’t watching.

* * *

Susan ends up working for the Corps despite her instincts for self-preservation. Work’s hard to find, too many people moving inland, and Ganya’s a chopper pilot based in Panama City, following in his footsteps seems logical, even if their father rails against the idea. She packs up and heads to the PPDC training grounds outside Kodiak. She proves her worth her first month out of the Academy, pulling a night shift in Anchorage: flying on zero sleep, filling in for a drunk duty officer who finds himself unemployed the next morning, holding steady light for Brawler Yukon during a blinding winter storm. She’s immediately shipped off to Sydney, a note in her file from Marshall Sinclair: _I don’t care how young she is, have her fly point._

Sheridan takes one look at her and asks her to please not punch Chuck Hansen. She hasn’t even met Hansen yet, but she’s heard rumors and her new CO telling her not to slug him in the same breath as welcoming her to Sydney gives her enough of a picture to stay clear. She very nearly decks him anyway two weeks later, overhearing a comment about _damn chopper pilots_ after a Category I that took far too long to take down, and it’s only his sheer necessity and a lack of padding below the catwalk that keeps her fist by her side.

Vulcan Specter’s piloted by telepaths and Susan tries to stay out of their way as much as possible. She wouldn’t even rate a 1 on the scale if they found her, but she’s pushing her luck as it is. Memory of what happened to her mother is never too far away, usually followed by what might happen to her. No one knows what the Corps does with telepaths it finds later in life, only that they tend to disappear.

She trains with the pilots, learning combat and self-defense in her down time. Herc even tells her that she’d make a fine pilot one day, if she could ever find someone compatible. She takes the compliment with a nod, though she’d never accept if she was offered the job.

She flies home for Ganya’s funeral, the result of a Category II off the coast of Colombia.

* * *

It’s been three years since Jason, and Talia’s restlessness is obvious to everyone. Though she bounces around the globe, recruiting telepaths and walking new pilots through the first handshake with their jaeger, and life certainly isn’t _boring_ , she’s twitchy, needing more. Marshall Alexander actually kicks her out of Hong Kong, tells her she’s driving everyone in her LOCCENT up the wall and she’s not to come back until she’s a pilot again.

Talia misses the expression on Lyta’s face as her chopper departs the Shatterdome for Hong Kong International, and it’s for the better. She’d order the chopper turned around for a compatibility test on the spot. Lyta’s the only telepath to ever successfully pilot a jaeger solo, and even the knowledge that Lyta’s five minutes in the Drift away from a permanent handshake might not stop either one of them from trying to get back in the Conn-Pod.

Talia takes a deep breath as the plane descends into Sydney. Bester’s sending her on a wild goose chase for a copilot, someone to ride Gipsy Danger with once she’s patched up and put back together again. Talia hasn’t heard from Raleigh since the attack, and doubts she will any time soon. She knows about demons. This little adventure isn’t without a mild sense of dread.

She’s flown directly from the airport to the Shatterdome via chopper. As far as anyone’s concerned, she’s here for a routine examination on Vulcan Specter’s pilots. The PPDC learned after Jason: check your telepath pilots for signs of crazy, and check them often.

She’s been to Sydney before – and all Shatterdomes are approximately the same hulking, beat to hell monstrosities looking wildly out of place in their cities – but still blinks and stares out the window, watching their approach. She leaves the headset on the seat when they land and smooths her skirt as she climbs out of the bird onto the landing pad. Marshall Sheridan greets her with a handshake – he’s in on the real reason she’s here – and tells her that he’s lined up a list of potential copilots for whenever she’s ready. 

John hands her a USB drive with candidate files, well aware that this is an exercise in futility. PPDC has a list half a mile long of bad luck from attempts to pair telepaths and mundanes in the jaeger cockpit. The portion of that list that isn’t locked in a padded room is six feet under. None of his candidates are telepaths, but Sydney’s a nice detour on the journey back to Kodiak and it won’t hurt to give everyone some practice with a different fighter, and god only knows the last time Talia was in a Kwoon room with a bo. It’s good for everyone.

Talia nods and follows her escort to her quarters, pleased that they’re a bit less industrial than the ones she had in Hong Kong. She checks her phone as soon as the door’s shut, reads an email from Bester: Gipsy Danger will be back online in a couple of weeks, but they’re building a new Mark 5 that’s all hers if she can find a copilot. No pressure.

The list of candidates isn’t long, and they all look promising – for someone who isn’t a telepath. She reads over their files while eating dinner and frowns when she comes to the last one: Ivanova, Susan. Nowhere in Ivanova’s file does it mention that she’s even expressed interest at a spot in the Academy training program, nor are there any compatibility details. Her record’s mostly impeccable – Talia can overlook the incident with the telepath dispensed to perform last year’s checkup on Vulcan’s pilots; she’s met the man and has more than once considered throwing him out the window herself – and full of commendations. 

Talia shrugs, assumes that Sheridan stuck Ivanova on the list because she needed some Kwoon experience, and sets her computer aside, favoring the view out her tiny window. She’s on the wrong side of the harbor for the sunset, but the colors are beautiful all the same. She cracks her neck. She’ll start trials tomorrow.

* * *

Susan watches in appreciation as Winters takes down three candidates without even breaking a sweat. Blonde hair tied back, she’s a blur with the bo – confident and entirely unafraid, a surprise considering the gossip Susan overheard at breakfast: Winters hasn’t piloted in three years, been working telepath admin since her copilot went off the deep end. No reason for someone like that to keep up her skills, but she did anyway. Winters brushes her bangs out of her face, flashing the psi tattoo on her forearm, a requirement for all telepaths. Susan absently rubs her own arm, where the tattoo should lie.

Winters isn’t compatible with anyone in this room, and Susan’s not interested even if she were, but Susan’s beaten almost everyone stationed in Sydney and wants someone new to practice her skills with, someone unpredictable.

It’s seven candidates before anyone even gets a point in on Winters and Susan’s eyebrow raises just a bit when Sheridan calls the point. By the time they reach the end of the list and Sheridan calls Susan’s name, only one person has beat Winters (and that was on a technicality), and she’s actually beginning to look bored.

Sheridan nods and they take their positions, hands effortlessly swinging the bo around in skillful intimidation. Neither one of them is fazed by the other and when he calls for the match to start, it’s a blur to the center of the mat, the loud clacking of wood on wood the only sound in the room.

Susan’s fought telepaths before and she’s even fought mundanes who have asked her to try drifting afterward, but none of it ever felt like this. She _knows_ where Winters is going to be, _feels_ her next move half a breath before her knee bends, staff coming down on a shoulder that isn’t there anymore. She tucks and rolls out of the way, flipping up onto her feet into a turn to block, but she’s too late, was too focused on where to be that she forgot where _not_ to be.

Winters gets the first point.

They lock eyes and Susan feels a ripple down her spine. Winters cocks her head, brings her bo up in defense. Susan switches attacks at the last moment, changes to a sweep, and Winters lands flat on her back, Susan’s weapon at her throat.

* * *

They’re tied at three-three for half an hour before Talia decides that enough is enough. Ivanova doesn’t have the tattoo and the only mention of telepathy in her file is a heavily-classified deceased mother, but there’s tangibility there; she can almost see the thread between them. Only other telepaths have evaded her for this long, so fluidly matched her movements. 

Either Ivanova is very, _very_ good, or she’s been hiding.

Talia catches Ivanova in an arm bar, but doesn’t take the point. She drops her bo, loosens her grip and says, “She’s my copilot.”

There’s a murmur of astonished horror from the crowd: everyone knows what happens when mundanes and telepaths drift. Sheridan clenches his jaw and orders both of them to his office, _now_.

Talia tries to scan Ivanova in the elevator, only to be met with a very angry block. Ivanova stares straight ahead, not even acknowledging her. Talia crosses her arms and leans against the wall for the rest of the ride.

* * *

Susan sits quietly, sipping at her water while Winters and Sheridan go head to head about telepaths and mundanes and drifting and relative insanity levels. She only catches about half the argument: Sheridan’s staunchly protecting her, and Winters is pulling fifteen year-old data out of thin air.

“She’s not a telepath! My answer is no,” Sheridan says with a tone of finality, just daring Winters to try again.

The silence holds.

“You leave for Kodiak in the morning, Miss Winters. Ivanova, get to the infirmary,” he gestures at her shoulder, beginning to bruise a deep purple. “Dismissed.”

Winters catches Susan’s arm outside Sheridan’s office, tugs her into an empty side corridor. “You know there’s a connection, I know you want this, why didn’t you say anything?”

Susan stares at Winters’ hand until she lets go. “Nobody knows,” she says evenly, as close to an admission as she’ll ever speak aloud. “And you know what happens to adult telepaths who drift without childhood training. Have a good evening, Miss Winters. Good luck on your search for a copilot.” She turns and starts to walk down the hallway, taking the long way to the infirmary so she’s calm when she gets there.

“Susan,” Winters calls.

Against her better judgment, Susan pauses.

“I’ll be in LOCCENT at 8:00pm tonight, if you change your mind.”

Susan turns the corner without a glance back. 

She lies on her bed staring at the ceiling for a good hour, an ice pack strapped to her shoulder. Her walls are mostly unadorned, save for a few pictures of Ganya and her parents, and a bar napkin signed by Sasha Kaidonovsky she’s been hauling around since Ganya did a rotation in Vladivostok in ‘18. She was on duty for her father’s funeral last year, after decades of working in jaeger power research labs finally caught up to his health. She didn’t try too hard to get her shift switched, though tells herself that it’s okay – at least she talked to him the morning he died. 

She’s the only one the kaiju haven’t killed.

* * *

Talia’s about to give up and head back to her quarters to pack and send word to Bester that Sydney was predictably a bust. She looks at the clock and decides to leave at 11:00, giving Ivanova another five minutes. LOCCENT’s populated by a skeleton crew for the graveyard shift and she doesn’t even need a surface scan to see that she’s starting to annoy them by hovering. Telepaths are allowed just about anywhere in a Shatterdome without reason or explanation, though they’re not always welcome.

At 10:59, Ivanova hovers in the doorway. “Out,” she orders the crew. They scramble over themselves to leave, not at all interested in sticking around for whatever’s about to happen next. “What makes you think this will work?”

“What changed your mind?”

“I haven’t, yet.”

Talia nods, fair point. “You’re a low enough rating that your psi abilities probably won’t flare up uncontrollably in the Drift. That’s been the problem: without years of training, telepaths stronger than a two can’t control themselves while drifting. Your telepathy is passive, so it shouldn’t cause a problem. But there’s enough of it present to prevent you from…” she trails off.

“Losing my mind?” Ivanova supplies the rest of the sentence.

“None of this is tested, it’s completely theory.” And all the telepath power in the world couldn’t save Jason.

* * *

Susan tilts her head and studies Winters in the glowing artificial light. She nods, slowly. She doesn’t trust the other woman, but it’s as close to trust she thinks she’ll ever get. “Okay,” she says, and it’s clear from Winters’ silence that this was not the expected response. 

She calls back a tech while Winters figures out what just happened. Under threat of extreme bodily harm – possible separation of lungs from chest – the tech agrees to run all the connections and not tell a soul what goes down, good or bad.

The suit’s warm and stiff and the gel smells a little weird, but she’s unexpectedly comfortable strapped into Vulcan Specter next to Talia Winters. She takes a deep breath. “I could either go insane, die, go insane and then die, or we create a stable handshake.”

Talia slowly turns her head to look at Susan through the visor shield, eyebrows raised. “Optimism is not your strong suit.”

“I’m Russian.”

_“Alright, ladies. Ill-advised late-night Drift compatibility session starting 3…2…1.”_

* * *

Susan stands at the foot of the jaeger and cranes her neck, looking upward. She itches her nose. Behind her, Talia sneezes. She looks back to Stacker before she gets vertigo. “And _we_ name her?”

They’ve been riding Gipsy Danger for the past seven months, but the repairs after Knifehead were slapdash, band-aids to get her operational again as soon as possible. She needs a full year offline to properly integrate her new left arm, and half the Conn-Pod is duct taped. But there’s a Mark 5, shiny and brand new, standing right in front of them, waiting for pilots.

Stacker nods. “First pilots get naming rights. Figure it out quick, ladies. She’s operational and no one wants to call for _Unnamed Jaeger_ in the middle of the night.”

They salute in unison. “Yes, sir.” They turn on the balls of their feet and walk away.

Stacker blinks. He’s never going to get used to them. They’re completely in sync until they’re not, and then they’re completely opposite. They’ll be deployed down to LA as soon as they have a few test runs under their belt, and be someone else’s problem. They’ll raise holy hell, that’s for sure.

“You never did tell me what changed your mind,” Talia says in the elevator.

“You’re not a very good telepath if you can’t figure that out when you’re in the Drift with me.” Susan presses the button for four, one floor up, taking them to the mess hall for lunch. She rubs her arm, still free of ink, still secret. 

Talia rolls her eyes and pushes off the wall to follow Susan. She’s seen the reason – it’s why half the pilots become pilots – and decides that maybe that’s good enough for them, the Drift. She frowns at the mystery pasta that’s handed to her; the meat looks suspiciously like last night’s dinner, chopped up a bit finer.

Tendo ends up in the line behind them, bowtie astray as usual; he’s significantly less wary of lunch, taking a bite while still in line. “You two figure out a name yet?” He’s been on duty for nearly 48 hours, watching stats and listening to Newton and Gottlieb nitpick each other, and has forgotten how time works outside of the command center.

They look at each other, blink, and then look back at him. The name clicks to them, like they clicked together seven months ago in Sydney. “Russian Winter.”


End file.
